By Aman Sharma
Where are
the Italian marines–in which jail? That was one of the rhetorical
questions posed by Narendra Modi during his election campaign.
But rousing patriotic emotions in the
quest for votes is one thing, diplomacy is another, as the new
government has been quick to understand. On Wednesday, the government
agreed in the Supreme Court (SC) that one of the marines, Massimiliano
Latorre, can stay in Italy until April for health reasons. He would have
been away from India for seven months by then.
Nearly three years after Latorre and
fellow marine Salvatore Girone shot dead two Indian fishermen on the
high seas, they are still to face trial. The BJP government admits it’s
considering a consensual agreement with Italy to settle the matter.
That’s really the best option. It’s time
to end the charade and send the marines home for good to face a military
trial in Rome. The NDA government, like its predecessor, has no
interest in punishing the marines, given that India’s diplomatic
relations with the European Union are at stake. The Italians know this
well and have played the diplomatic game to perfection, walking India
into a legal trap.
The goof-ups began in 2013 when then home
secretary RK Singh sent the case to the National Investigation Agency
(NIA) and not the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after SC
transferred the case to a “central agency”. NIA invoked a little-known
antipiracy law to give itself jurisdiction since it otherwise cannot
probe simple murder cases unlike the CBI.
Italy immediately protested that the
anti-piracy law carried a mandatory death sentence, which contradicted
the assurance given by then foreign minister Salman Khurshid to Italy.
But India dug its head into the sand, choosing to remain oblivious of
what lay ahead. NIA completed its probe and asked the home ministry for
approval to charge the marines. That was granted amidst Italy’s rising
protests.
The attorney general then advised NIA to
charge the marines under a different section of the anti-piracy law that
only carried a 10-yearsentence. NIA agreed as it was still charging the
marines for murder under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). A second sanction
order was issued by the ministry. Italy was still not impressed.
Then law minister Kapil Sibal intervened
after Italy made it clear that it did not want the anti-piracy law used
at all. The home ministry issued a third sanction order saying the
marines would only be tried under IPC. The trap was thus well and truly
sprung. Italy told SC that without the anti-piracy law, NIA had no
jurisdiction to charge the marines at all. Italy has since argued that
while the anti-piracy law extends over India’s exclusive economic zone,
IPC only covers territorial waters and the incident took place outside
the latter. Italy can raise the jurisdictional issue only during a
trial, the NIA contends.
While in power, both UPA and NDA, have
been soft on the marines. The government is open to letting the marines
serve their sentence in Italy if convicted here. It might as well now
agree to them being tried in Italy too.
